“That is your idea, not mine, Mrs. Myles.”
“Don’t fence with me, man! You thought all that, and perhaps more besides. And all on the evidence of a silly, sex-crazed, little strumpet of a kitchen-maid! Well, you’re wrong. In the first place, I can manage downstairs and up…just about. But I’d never make those steep cellar steps and then to the bedroom. Heart’s too weak. I did go down and I did get the servants out, but for a different reason…”
Mrs. Myles was talking fast, her cheeks were flushed, and she had to pause to take breath.
“…Those two, the maid and the woman, are robbing me. I’ve suspected it for a bit. They thought I’d never get downstairs again, so they could strip the place clean. There’s God knows how many ornaments, pictures and miniatures gone from down below. That’s what I was after when I was down. Well, I’ve sacked Miriam, and I’m after a new housekeeper. When I get one, Mrs. Casey goes, but not before she’s restored all she’s taken! I gave that little rotter something to remember me by, too, I’ll tell you. She’s probably got a lovely black eye by now. I couldn’t keep my hands off her.”
The old woman chuckled, sipped her tea, and passed cigarettes to her visitor.
“But that’s not all the tale, by any means. You bobbies also sent somebody disguised as a gasman, who carried-off some of my best bottles of rum…A pretty trick to play on a helpless old woman. How you can sit there puffing my cigarettes and look me in the eye, I don’t know! I suppose you were out to prove that the rum that killed Three-Fingers was the same brand as mine. There’s not much of that kind about these days. Most modern rum’s like modern ways. Shoddy. Well, I’ll forgive you, because you’re only doing your duty. Not only that, I’ll tell you something that’ll make your hair curl. You’ll probably find that my rum and that which Three-Fingers drank himself into eternity with, are the same stuff.”
Littlejohn smiled. “You’re right, Mrs. Myles. We’ve done that already.”
“I thought so. A fast worker, aren’t you? That’s why I want to tell you my tale, and be left in peace. Can’t stand being buzzed around and quizzed by anybody. Now, tell me one other thing. Did the gasman go to read Sir Caleb’s meter and rifle his wine-cellar at the same time, like he did here?”
“Yes.”
“Aha. Then you probably found the same brand of rum there, too. Eh? Don’t look surprised…He bought some of our stock of rum…Clarets and Hocks, too, for that matter, damn him, when we sold out at the Hall. He did it through an agent, you can be sure. Otherwise, I’d have poured the lot down the sink rather than let a drop of that good stuff pass down his ugly, ignorant throat. Doesn’t know the difference between Liebfraumilch and Milk-Stout! But let’s be getting on.”
She rose and took from a drawer a pair of field glasses. Then she moved to the window of the room. Dusk was falling, but the distant moorland, with the winding ledge of a road, was still visible. “Come here.”
She gave Littlejohn the glasses. She pointed to a spot on the road, which could be seen dipping from the moor on its way to the outskirts of the town. “See that house…? Know it?”
“Yes, I think so, Mrs. Myles. I was there the other night. Spenclough Hall.”
“Right. That’s where Three-Fingers got his rum, Inspector. I saw him leaving there on the morning he was killed. I spend a lot of time at the window, watching things coming and going on the moor and the road. I’ve seen you and your gang hovering about Sykes’s remains several times. I’ve watched the spot where he was buried for over twenty years…I knew he was there, and when those volunteers, Home Guard you call ’em, don’t you…? When they dug him up under my very eyes, so to speak, I knew that the burden of my conscience was soon to be lifted. It had to come, you know. Murder will out, won’t it?”
She moved back to her chair and sat heavily down. Littlejohn was flabbergasted, not only at the mine which she had so suddenly sprung, but at the matter-of-fact way in which she had done it.
“I suppose you think I’m callous, talking about it so easily, Inspector. Believe me, I’m not. But, when you’re my age and have been through what I’ve suffered, you’ll take a lot to excite you. I didn’t kill Sykes myself. But, I know who did…and his pal, Trickett, too. Sykes was murdered in cold blood. Trickett was shot in defence of me by a very faithful servant of mine, now dead. Buller, the gamekeeper. Haythornthwaite killed Sykes. And now you know…”
Littlejohn took down the confession itself in his notebook. He was not missing that at any cost. The old lady seemed to regard her story as told, however, and was busy gathering tea-things on the tray ready for their removal by the housekeeper.
“That’s not all, is it, Mrs. Myles?”
“Surely, that’s enough, Inspector!”
“Can’t you give me more details than that? I want to know how it all occurred.”
“I’m very tired, and it’s getting my bedtime, man. I’ll just give you another five minutes, and then you’d better be off. And think yourself lucky to have heard what you have…I might have died without speaking of it…Which reminds me of a play of my heyday…East Lynne. Let’s get on, then.
“On the day of the murder, I’d been at the Elvers’ at Waterfold. They’d some rough shooting and I had my gun with me. I was alone in the car, and coming home along the road you saw through the window. It was dusk as I passed the Horse and Jockey. The place was busy; there’d been a party on Haythornthwaite’s shoot that day, and the beaters and other hangers-on were finishing-off the event properly. I drove on, and in less than three minutes passed another car, nose pointing towards Hatterworth, parked by the roadside. I’d got some distance past before I realized that it was Haythornthwaite’s. I pulled-in, got out and strolled back. I wanted a word or two with Caleb. You remember, I told you I was thinking of instituting proceedings against him for stealing patent-rights. I thought I’d tell him so. I felt quarrelsome, and just ripe for a row.”
Mrs. Myles licked her dry lips, almost with relish.
“There was nobody about, so I stepped on to the moor, peering about to see if Haythornthwaite was anywhere near. I’d hardly set foot on the turf, than a shot was fired. As you’ve no doubt heard, it was too dark for potting at birds. I thought there’d been an accident, so set-off in the direction of the noise. Just as I was getting near the scene of the tragedy, a man rose to his feet. Apparently, he’d been kneeling over the body. It was Haythornthwaite. I’d know his figure anywhere. He bolted for his car and, before I’d decided what to do, the engine was going and he was off with the wind to Hatterworth. ‘At last I’ve got you, my beauty,’ I thought, and rushed to the place where he’d risen from. There was Sykes, sprawling, dead, his blood all over the wimberry bushes.”
The old lady paused, her eyes glassy, her lips twitching, as though, in memory, she were once again on the ghastly spot.
“But, somebody else had heard the shot as well. Jerry Trickett lumbered over the turf, his gun under his arm, and the worse for drink. He stood there, snorting for a minute, taking in the scene in the dying light, and then bellowed with rage at me. I was unarmed, but he must have thought that Sykes’s gun, which was lying there, was mine. ‘So, you’ve caught-up with him at last, have you, you bitch?’ he snarled. ‘Well, you’re not goin’ to get away with it. He was my pal and, by God, I’ll make you pay.’ He raised his gun, probably with the idea of holding me up and taking me down to the lock-up or something. I didn’t like the look in his eye. I’d no idea that the gun wasn’t loaded, as it proved afterwards. ‘Look here, Trickett,’ I said, ‘I’ve not done this. He was dead when I found him. But, I know who did do it.’ Jerry was too befuddled to listen to reason. He thrust his gun-barrels at my chest. I wasn’t going to stand that. I just got hold of them and twisted them away. We tussled for a second or two, and then a third visitor arrived. Trickett broke away from me and raised his gun again. The newcomer fired, and down went Jerry like a ninepin. It was Buller, m
y old gamekeeper, who’d fired the shot.”
Littlejohn listened spellbound, not uttering a word. The scene on the darkening moor unfolded itself before his imagination. Mrs. Myles poured out a cup of the cold tea and wetted her lips with it.
“We faced each other there, appalled. I told Buller what had happened. At first, we thought of fetching help, and telling the police the full story. Then, we realized what it would mean. It was obvious that Sykes must have been blackmailing Haythornthwaite, and that meeting him alone, Sir Caleb had taken the bull by the horns and removed him. I was known to have a grudge against all three of them. In fact, I’d made a public parade of my feelings. How was I to fare if accused of the crime? Haythornthwaite might deny it, and accuse me of trying to saddle him with it. Besides, however timely Buller’s arrival might have been, he’d no justification for shooting my assailant, even if his tale were believed. He’d get gaol for manslaughter, if he missed the rope for murder. It seemed hours before we decided what to do, although it must have been merely a matter of minutes. I had a sudden brainwave. The quarrel between the two dead men was the talk of the town. Buller had come from the Horse and Jockey, and said they’d just had a row there. Suppose we buried one; the odds were that the other would be suspected and be thought to have fled after the crime. I told Buller and he fell-in with the scheme at once. In the boot of my car was a small spade, which Micky used to use. He was a bit of an antiquary, and used to go hunting for flints and other stuff on the moor. Buller set about digging a grave in the dark…”
Mrs. Myles’s eyes were fixed stonily ahead, as though she were living through that awful night once more. Outside, darkness had fallen, and the view through the great window was cut-off as though by a deep blue curtain. A dead coal fell into the hearth with a tinkle.
“Draw the blind and put on the light…”
Littlejohn did as he was bidden.
“In less than half-an-hour, we’d buried Sykes. Trickett we left as he was. I’d a pocket torch, and we shaded it to a mere pin-point of light and carefully obliterated all our tracks, wiping my fingerprints from Trickett’s gun, too. No doubt, you and your modern ways would have seen through it all. But Pickersgill was on the case and not too bright. Good job he didn’t bring in his father-in-law, Inspector Entwistle. He’s as sharp as a bunch of needles. We tucked Sykes away under an old gorse bush, about a yard down. I’ve watched that bush ever since, from the Hall and from here. When it shed its green and its blooms with the autumn, I shuddered, lest, laying bare the soil beneath, it might betray my secret. And then, with the Spring, came foliage and flowers again, throwing a blanket over the dead. So, it’s gone on for more than twenty years. I’m glad it’s over. I’m tired…”
Littlejohn was in a quandary. The old lady was exhausted, but at her age one couldn’t leave a statement like that unrecorded and unsigned overnight.
“Suppose I write out briefly what you’ve told me now; would you sign a statement to-night, Mrs. Myles?” he asked.
“Yes. Do it downstairs in the dining-room, though. Mrs. Casey will find you pen and paper, I’m almost dead with weariness. I’ll be getting in bed meanwhile, and I’ll sign it there. Mind you, I expect you to bring this home to Haythornthwaite. Poor Buller, rest his soul, is past caring. Never got over that night. Turned to drink to forget it, and drank himself away.”
She rang the bell for Mrs. Casey, and when that grim woman arrived, issued brief instructions concerning the provision of writing materials. Littlejohn followed the housekeeper down the dark stairs, which seemed to descend into the pit itself.
Mrs. Myles rose when she was alone. Wearily, she made a tottering tour of the stuffy room. She smiled at the family portraits, her husband and boys, and stood for a moment before the picture of the moor, so much admired by Littlejohn. Regaining her chair, she sat thinking awhile, and finally seemed to make up her mind. Taking a pencil from a drawer in the table, which she unlocked with a key from her pocket, she wrote a brief note and tucked it under the pink tape of a bundle of papers marked “Copy Will”, also in the drawer. Then, she took out a large pill-box, bearing the label of a chemist and a description in her own hand. “Capsules for destroying dogs.” Years old, she mused. Cocker spaniels, setters, a fox-terrier, a bobtail sheep-dog…they’d all taken release from weariness and old-age from that box. And now, their mistress, too. She extracted two capsules, slipped them in her mouth, swallowed them with a draught of cold tea and composed herself, her hands gently folded in her lap…
Chapter XVII
Council of War
Their winding-sheet the bluidy clay,
Their graves are growing green to see:
Now wae to thee, thou cruel lord,
A bluidy man I trow thou be.
—Burns
Snow was falling as Littlejohn, Haworth and Ross arrived back at the police-station after their investigations into the death of Mrs. Myles. There was no mystery about it. The old lady, apparently weary of existence, disturbed in her mind concerning the outcome of her confession, and overcome by the rapid rate of developments in the case, had taken a dose of prussic acid, which she had apparently been holding against an event such as this. She now awaited an inquest; another victim of the series of evil events set in train by Haythornthwaite.
“We must work quickly,” said Haworth, shaking the snow from his greatcoat and swishing the water from his hat into the fireplace of the charge-room. He was still hobbling a bit, but now wore a shoe, split down the toe-cap, over his damaged foot. Ross did not remove his overcoat at once, but stood musing on the hearthrug, his thumbs tucked in his pockets and his face a study in depression. Littlejohn’s pipe was hissing from a catch of snow. His face was ruddy and his nose red. His hat was on the back of his head. He removed his coat and hat, shook them violently in the corridor, and hung them on a hook behind the door.
“We must get something before the inquest, Littlejohn,” continued Haworth, lighting a cigarette and ejecting jets of smoke down his nostrils. “You’re the chief witness here, and by the time it comes out that the suicide occurred after your visit, we must have nailed Haythornthwaite in one way or another. If your evidence before the coroner gets around, which it’s bound to do, Mrs. Myles will probably be branded as the murderess. It’s all round the town what you’re here about now, Littlejohn, and it’ll be said that she took the short way out when liable to arrest. We don’t want that. It’s not fair to the old woman and, what’s more important, it’ll hamper our movements in roping-in Haythornthwaite.”
“Yes,” butted-in Ross. “But how are we to get him, sir? Inspector Littlejohn was alone with her when she confessed. She signed no statement; whatever she did say might simply be smashed by a good lawyer, as the ramblings of an old woman in her dotage, and the evidence of one police-officer without witness, no matter how reputable he may be, will hardly pass as convincing. Looks to me as if we’re in a jam, unless we can trap Sir Caleb into a confession.”
Littlejohn puffed away at his pipe with undisturbed good humour.
“That’s what we aim at doing, Ross,” he said. “We’d better settle down and cudgel our brains as to ways and means. I believe what Mrs. Myles told me. She was a perfectly lucid woman, with a keen mind, in spite of her years, and I’d stake my reputation on her telling the truth. The point now is, whether to face Haythornthwaite with the visit of Three-Fingers and the death of Sykes, or continue our search for someone who saw the tramp near Sir Caleb’s place or coming and going there…”
The outer door opened, admitting a blast of the east wind, which swept through the building like a hunted ghost. There was a sound of footsteps along the passage accompanied by grunts and snorts, and ex-Inspector Entwistle entered the room.
The old police-officer’s beard was covered in snow and his breath came and went in brief gasps. His face glowed from his exertions, but his lips were blue. He stood for a moment recovering his breath, removed h
is hat and flicked off the snow, and unbuttoned his overcoat, which he shook all over the floor, dog-fashion, without taking it off. Finally, he unwound a thick woollen scarf from round his ears and throat, and smiled sadly on the three officers.
“Evenin’,” he said briefly, and flopped in the nearest chair.
Haworth hurried to a cupboard, poured a tot of brandy into a glass, and passed it to the visitor.
“Here, get that into you, Inspector,” he said. “This is a bad night for you to be abroad. Let’s all go in my office. It’s cosier, and we’ll get this cold properly out of our bones.”
“Ah couldn’t stop indoors to-night,” said Entwistle as they adjourned to the smaller room. “Ah’ve just heard about Mrs. Myles, and feel I must come and talk to you about it. Charlie and his wife have gone to th’ pictures, which makes it easier for me to slip out. What my daughter’d say if she knew ah was away from th’ fireside on a neet like this, I don’t know. Ah thought maybe ah could help a bit. You see, ah knew Mrs. Myles very well. We grew up together from children. Ah came from the village where she lived. Her father was th’ squire.”
The old man did not tell them how, as a young constable, he had fallen in love with the daughter of the lord of the manor. He remembered how in schooldays they had bird-nested together and gathered wimberries on the moor. He’d never fancied his chances with one so much above his station, but none the less, she’d been his first love. Whenever he had met her on the roads—and a fine figure she had cut on a horse, daredevil rider, too—they’d stopped for a word. When, at length, she had come as Mrs. Myles to Hatterworth, where he was later to rise to chief of police, they’d resumed their old friendship and he’d watched her happy home life, her fine growing boys, and the increasing prosperity of her husband’s firm with a secret joy, for he never wished her anything but well. Then, the decline of her fortunes, the loss of her boys, the end of Myles’s foundry, all came as blows to his spirit and he had stood helplessly by, unable to interfere. For twenty years or more, she’d shut herself up in the house up-town. Every Christmas he’d called to wish her the compliments of the season, and take her a few of his own eggs, and each time he’d found her more aged, but as vigorous in mind as ever. She was still his oldest and best friend. All that remained of the happier world he’d known long ago. Hearing of her tragic death, he made up his mind to get to the bottom of it and what had caused it, and to see that she was honourably acquitted of any sin which might be associated with it.
The Dead Shall be Raised and The Murder of a Quack Page 14
